Episode 1-13: Appreciation
This episode is a Thanksgiving Special. In this episode AV and Peon talk about why it's important to be thankful and what they appreciate about different parts of the Super Smash Brothers community. Questions Discord member Infinity Soul: how do you learn from playing worse players? AV: I think that’s a really incredible question because it’s something that people don’t think about a lot. When they play players that they think are worse than them, or that they generally have a really dominant record over, they don’t stop to think about what they can learn from this person. It’s more about just auto piloting and winning because you can usually win without thinking. There’s a lot to learn from players that are worse than you, or that you generally beat. It’s not necessarily things that are super direct that you learn when someone’s punishing a lot of your options. One thing that you can practice is your punish game. Likely when you are playing someone that you beat, you have a lot more space to work with, so basically optimizing you’re really great perfect pivot or a footstool or footstool combos. Maybe just practicing your crazy punishes on an actual player that you have the room to work with is really underrated. What do you think Peon? Peon: Yeah, I think you answered it well. Simply put, in order to summarize it in one sentence, work on your punish game. You’re going to have plenty of times to beat them and practice optimal combos. Practice your combos. Practice combos that are situational, you know your mix up oriented. Also, it’s really important to realize while you’re playing a bad player, what you’re getting away with, because they’re bad. You know, if they are doing some dumb mistake, or whatever, just make a mental note of it. Know that a good player wouldn’t do that. I think that the consciousness is important there. To summarize this long one, he asks when he plays against characters he doesn’t have a lot of matchup experience with and he gets surprised by certain options that he’s never seen before, he immediately wants to forfeit because he’s like, man, you know I’m not prepared for this. He says when Ultimate comes out there’s going to be a lot of different situations because of a lot of different characters and new strategies. He’s afraid that, at the start of Ultimate, he’s going to be unprepared for every match he goes into and then will feel like giving up every match. What are your thoughts on this? AV: I think that’s totally understandable. I think that I’ve felt like that. I definitely felt like that against Jet’s Megaman in the last local that I played. It actually felt like I just got destroyed so hard that I was like: “No, this is clearly not happening with DK in this set” and I switched to Sheik. I definitely had a way more competitive game with Sheik and I think that’s the way you got to do it. If you know that there’s way too many things that you have to break down, and too many things you have to understand in order to play and in order to play the match up properly. That’s when having a secondary is your best boon and it’s another really good reason why you want to have a secondary in Ultimate. It was very valuable to have a secondary in Smash 4 with the amount of characters and the amount of random and weird matchups that you’ll have to fight. That’s why I have developed a decent Cloud and Sheik. When I feel like I have put in the time to play a match up with DK and I am unprepared for it. Peon: I also believe there’s something to be said about the fact that you know the moment when you’re thrown off, you feel the urge to surrender. I wouldn’t lean so heavily into preparation. Like I said, we had an hour-long episode on preparation last week. It’s important but you can’t prepare for everything. You’re going to be surprised in a tournament. People are going to, especially in the new game, throw some cheese at you. You can’t be discouraged. You have to laugh and try to learn as fast as possible. Make a mental note of what caught you off guard and ask your opponent about it. Lack of knowledge is not synonymous with your own inevitable defeat. You can still win, even if you are surprised. I think it should be to harden yourself. Navigation Home | Closing Q&A